It's not like I came home with an accent or with an exceptionally hard time speaking English.  That would be a lie.  I spoke English every day of my mission, even in those more strong-willed times when I tried not to.
However, I have continually had a hard time with a few things: spelling, Gerlishing, words that have German cognates, and idioms-- even if they have nothing to do with German!

Dad: "Did you see there's a new Spiderman movie with a third actor for Peter Parker?"
Me *disgusted* : "Gosh, Marvel needs to stop juicing every franchise for the money!"
Dad: *raised brow*
Me: "Wait...."
Me: "......milking everything?"
Dad: "Milking it for all it's worth?"
Me: "....Yeah, that one."

Rachel: "I'm really upset that my laptop went kaput on me!"
Me: "When did I teach you that?!"
Rachel:
Rachel: ?
 Me to Dallin: "Hey can I take a little pause from texting so I can work on my online class and just get my test over the way?"
Dallin: "You mean out of the way?"
Adam: "I'm down to get dessert.  Where do you want to go?"
Me: "Well what's in the near?" (literal translation of German in der Nähe instead of "what's closeby")     
 Me: "You learned Spanish on your mission, so what did you usually do for Sprachstudium?"
Anthony: "For what??!" 
Me: "Er, language study."
 Me to Olivia: "Do you say, 'He held my hand FAST' or 'He held my hand FEST?'"
 Me: "I think this route of school would be for my better......er... for my best?"
Me:  "So we were talking to this guy on a train and just when it started getting good we had to get out at our haltestelle!"
Dallin: "English please?"
Me: "Crap, what is that word?"
Dallin: ?
Me: ______
Me: "Busstop... no."
Me: _____
Me: "Freaking heck."
Me: "Trainstop."

Mama Price

Meiners... served with me in Wien

Sister Lehmann {MTC friends} and Elder Nielsen {served in the crazy city of Augsburg together}

After the reunion, I watched The Ring with Rachel, cousin Paige and roommate Courtney.  Better than the horror flick itself was afterwards when Paige freaked out cause she got a nosebleed.
Dallin came over and the girls made pumpkin snickerdoodles.... I totally crashed on the couch and didn't wake up till 3 AM with the others still wide awake {I'll blame my illness for my inability to be a total party animal}.
The next morning, Dallin picked me up and we headed to the beautiful mountains outside American Fork for a gorgeous drive {more on that in the next post.}
That evening, I was surprised with a combined birthday party for me and a few of Dallin's roommates who shared my birthday week.  Rachel and Courtney honored us with spice cake, and we pretended that turning 21 was cool by drinking virgin sodas out of brown glass bottles.
Then, Asylum 49!  Unfortunately there was some communication and Rachel's car ended up driving to a totally different haunted house, but the other 11 of us entertained each other thoroughly while we waited in the chilly line for over an hour.  I was slightly terrified that I would have a nervous breakdown, but instead when I got separated from the entire group, dragged around by gore-covered psychos and chainsawed in the stomach, my natural reaction was to giggle.

Rachel making Lundgreen sourdough waffles

we don't forget about our Rach

With a car packed full of snacks and childhood cartoons like Spirit, we headed past the dusty deserts and up into the wooded mountains.
The braver ones of the bunch tried not to freak out Mom TOO MUCH with our fascination of heights.  We strolled around a bit, had a picnic, and then set up the fire for a chill afternoon.  I think I was the only one not to take a nap either in a camping chair or in the car-- I was too busy brainstorming my book out in the fresh air.





For dinner we attempted to make German-style dough-wrapped sausages, as well as apple spice cobbler and of course S'mores.
OK, so maybe Saturday's 8 mile run wasn't the BEST idea after having bronchitis the week before. I totally relapsed and got sicker and sicker until, by the end of Sunday night, I had somewhere in between a 102-103 degree fever and had to return to the doctor next day because we thought I had pneumonia.  Besides that......... it was a fun day.